Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

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Veritas Aequitas
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Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Here's Kant take on the above [mine],
Thus the Order and Regularity in the Appearances, which we entitle Nature, we ourselves introduce.

We could never find them [Laws of Nature] in Appearances, had not we ourselves, or the Nature of our mind, originally set them there.

For this Unity of Nature has to be a Necessary one, that is, has to be an a priori certain Unity of the Connection of Appearances;
and such Synthetic Unity could not be established a priori if there were not Subjective
Grounds of such Unity contained a priori in the Original Cognitive Powers of our mind,
and if these Subjective Conditions, inasmuch as they are the Grounds of the Possibility of knowing any Object whatsoever in Experience, were not at the same time Objectively Valid.
Kant CPR A125

Views.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

From SEP;
4.3 The Law-Giver Of Nature
The final condition of self-consciousness that Kant adds to the preceding conditions is that our understanding must cooperate with sensibility to construct one, unbounded, and unified space-time to which all of our representations may be related.

To see why this further condition is required, consider that so far we have seen why Kant holds that we must represent an objective world in order to be self-conscious, but we could represent an objective world even if it were not possible to relate all of our representations to this objective world.
For all that has been said so far, we might still have unruly representations that we cannot relate in any way to the objective framework of our experience.

On Kant’s view, this would be a problem because, as we have seen, he holds that self-consciousness involves universality and necessity: according to his principle of apperception, “the I think must be able to accompany all my representations” (B131).
Yet if, on the one hand, I had representations that I could not relate in some way to an objective world, then I could not accompany those representations with “I think” or recognize them as my representations, because I can say “I think…” about any given representation only by relating it to an objective world, according to the argument just discussed.
So I must be able to relate any given representation to an objective world in order for it to count as mine.

On the other hand, self-consciousness would also be impossible if I represented multiple objective worlds, even if I could relate all of my representations to some objective world or other.
In that case, I could not become conscious of an identical self that has, say, representation 1 in space-time A and representation 2 in space-time B.
It may be possible to imagine disjointed spaces and times, but it is not possible to represent them as objectively real.
So self-consciousness requires that I can relate all of my representations to a single objective world.

The reason why I must represent this one objective world by means of a unified and unbounded space-time is that, as Kant argued in the Transcendental Aesthetic, space and time are the pure forms of human intuition.
If we had different forms of intuition, then our experience would still have to constitute a unified whole in order for us to be self-conscious, but this would not be a spatio-temporal whole.

Given that space and time are our forms of intuition, however, our understanding must still cooperate with sensibility to construct a spatio-temporal whole of experience because, once again, “we can represent nothing as combined in the object without having previously combined it ourselves,” and “all combination […] is an action of the understanding” (B130).
So Kant distinguishes between space and time as pure forms of intuition, which belong solely to sensibility; and the formal intuitions of space and time (or space-time), which are unified by the understanding (B160–161).
These formal intuitions are the spatio-temporal whole within which our understanding constructs experience in accordance with the categories.[18]

The most important implication of Kant’s claim that the understanding constructs a single whole of experience to which all of our representations can be related is that, since he defines nature “regarded materially” as “the sum total of all appearances” and he has argued that the categories are objectively valid of all possible appearances, on his view it follows that our categories are the source of the fundamental laws of nature “regarded formally” (B163, 165).

So Kant concludes on this basis that the Understanding is the true law-giver of nature.
In his words:
  • “all appearances in nature, as far as their combination is concerned, stand under the categories, on which nature (considered merely as nature in general) depends, as the original ground of its necessary lawfulness (as nature regarded formally)” (B165).
Or more strongly:
  • “we ourselves bring into the appearances that order and regularity that we call nature, and moreover we would not be able to find it there if we, or the nature of our mind, had not originally put it there.
    […] The understanding is thus not merely a faculty for making rules through the comparison of the appearances: it is itself the legislation for nature, i.e., without understanding there would not be any nature at all” (A125–126).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/#LawGivNat
Belinda
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Belinda »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:26 am Here's Kant take on the above [mine],
Thus the Order and Regularity in the Appearances, which we entitle Nature, we ourselves introduce.

We could never find them [Laws of Nature] in Appearances, had not we ourselves, or the Nature of our mind, originally set them there.

For this Unity of Nature has to be a Necessary one, that is, has to be an a priori certain Unity of the Connection of Appearances;
and such Synthetic Unity could not be established a priori if there were not Subjective
Grounds of such Unity contained a priori in the Original Cognitive Powers of our mind,
and if these Subjective Conditions, inasmuch as they are the Grounds of the Possibility of knowing any Object whatsoever in Experience, were not at the same time Objectively Valid.
Kant CPR A125

Views.
Our subjective powers of reason are indeed objectively valid. I wonder if 'valid' applies only to the proper use of logic and deductive reasoning but not inductive reasoning.

This question is complicated by the fact that your quotation is a translation from German, I suppose; or did Kant write and think in Latin? The use of a dead language is that the terms hardly evolve at all compared with living languages.

Our objective powers of reason are indeed objectively valid. But there is no experience that is not a 'valid' experience----depending on what 'valid' is taken to refer to. If 'valid' means certainly true, then everything that happens certainly did happen. However some experiences relate more than other experiences to preserving life; and that is the criterion which I choose to be a measure of what we transient subjective creatures can know of truth i.e. 'validity'.
Kant's philosophy has been called a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism. From rationalism he takes the idea that we can have a priori knowledge of significant truths, but rejects the idea that we can have a priori metaphysical knowledge about the nature of things in themselves, God, or the soul.
"Things in themselves" is an idea that must be dismissed by an idealist(immaterialist)so I claim there is no such thing as a "thing in itself". There is a thing for itself i.e. a subject of experience. But objective things in themselves is nonsense, and probably the ghost of his Christian upbringing.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

There are tons of books written on Kant's Laws of Nature,
here is one;

https://www.amazon.com/Kant-Laws-Nature ... 110754677X

Kant and the Laws of Nature
by Michela Massimi (Editor), Angela Breitenbach (Editor)

Part of the Intro:
Kant was acutely aware that we live in a world that, from the mineral to
the animal kingdom, follows regular patterns and manifests lawlike behavior.
What then is, for Kant, a law of nature?
And in what way do laws govern nature?


The first three chapters in Part I set the record straight on these two central questions.

In Chapter 1, Eric Watkins charts the territory
of the various kinds of law Kant advocates throughout his writings. They
include empirical laws of nature; the logical laws of homogeneity, specification, and continuity; and four a priori laws of cosmology, to mention
only a few salient examples. This variety notwithstanding, Watkins argues
that Kant held a coherent and unified view of what a law of nature is. On
Watkins’s reading, to be a law means to be necessary, and to be so in virtue
of a spontaneous legislative act.
On the one hand, Watkins’s interpretation
stresses the continuity between Kant’s mature view in the Critique of Pure
Reason, where the faculty of understanding is said to “prescribe” laws to
nature
, and Kant’s conception of the moral law in his practical philosophy.
On the other hand, Watkins argues that the difference among kinds of
laws can be explained by the different cognitive faculties that legislate
them
, different acts, and ultimately different kinds of necessity.

In Chapter 2, Karl Ameriks probes Watkins’s interpretation further,
with an eye to underlining the continuity of Kant’s theoretical and
practical philosophy. On Ameriks’s reading of Kant, the necessity of the
laws originates from the way in which the antecedent of a lawlike statement acts as a determining ground for the consequent. The determining
ground can here be understood as either causal (in natural science) or
normative (in morality). By laying out a sophisticated taxonomy with
seven main distinctions concerning necessity (and universality) in Kant,
Ameriks reminds us of the absolute centrality that the topic of lawfulness
plays in Kant, and of its pivotal role to modality, mathematics, and
morality.

How we come to know particular causal laws on Kant’s account is Paul
Guyer’s topic in Chapter 3. Hume had brought attention to the limits of
what can be known by induction. But Kant’s worry about the incompleteness of our knowledge of the laws of nature is not motivated by the same
Humean skeptical doubts, according to Guyer. For Kant, we come to
know particular causal laws through the workings of the faculty of reflective judgment, in its attempt to fulfill the requirements of systematicity laid
out by reason. Our knowledge of particular laws thus depends on our
coming to know nature as a system of laws, with lower level laws being

2 Introduction
subsumed under higher level (yet still empirical) laws. On Guyer’s reading,
it is the systematic unity of the classificatory and explanatory concepts at
play in particular causal laws, which ultimately explains why the law governed behavior of any object is part of a wider law-governed behavior
of an entire class of properties (patterns of motion due to gravity, for
example). Systematicity plays then an important role for Kant in making
us encounter nature as lawful.
Last edited by Veritas Aequitas on Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 12357
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 9:46 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:26 am Here's Kant take on the above [mine],
Thus the Order and Regularity in the Appearances, which we entitle Nature, we ourselves introduce.

We could never find them [Laws of Nature] in Appearances, had not we ourselves, or the Nature of our mind, originally set them there.

For this Unity of Nature has to be a Necessary one, that is, has to be an a priori certain Unity of the Connection of Appearances;
and such Synthetic Unity could not be established a priori if there were not Subjective
Grounds of such Unity contained a priori in the Original Cognitive Powers of our mind,
and if these Subjective Conditions, inasmuch as they are the Grounds of the Possibility of knowing any Object whatsoever in Experience, were not at the same time Objectively Valid.
Kant CPR A125

Views.
Our subjective powers of reason are indeed objectively valid. I wonder if 'valid' applies only to the proper use of logic and deductive reasoning but not inductive reasoning.
The objectivity of Scientific knowledge is based on inductive reasoning which has contributed the vast knowledge and utilities for humanity.

Note this point from the above,
  • How we come to know particular causal laws on Kant’s account is Paul
    Guyer’s topic in Chapter 3. Hume had brought attention to the limits of
    what can be known by induction
    .
    But Kant’s worry about the incompleteness of our knowledge of the laws of nature is not motivated by the same Humean skeptical doubts, according to Guyer. For Kant, we come to
    know particular causal laws through the workings of the faculty of reflective judgment,
    ....
This question is complicated by the fact that your quotation is a translation from German, I suppose; or did Kant write and think in Latin? The use of a dead language is that the terms hardly evolve at all compared with living languages.
Kant wrote in German where his personal styles is very difficult to read.
There are about 8 English translations of Kant's Critique and the later had been great improvements over the prior ones.
Regardless of the difficult writing, what count is the soundness of the arguments presented.
Our objective powers of reason are indeed objectively valid. But there is no experience that is not a 'valid' experience----depending on what 'valid' is taken to refer to. If 'valid' means certainly true, then everything that happens certainly did happen. However some experiences relate more than other experiences to preserving life; and that is the criterion which I choose to be a measure of what we transient subjective creatures can know of truth i.e. 'validity'.
Agree, what count is whether whatever is supposedly objective is useful to humanity in its quest for the optimal good [as justified].
Kant's philosophy has been called a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism. From rationalism he takes the idea that we can have a priori knowledge of significant truths, but rejects the idea that we can have a priori metaphysical knowledge about the nature of things in themselves, God, or the soul.
"Things in themselves" is an idea that must be dismissed by an idealist(immaterialist)so I claim there is no such thing as a "thing in itself". There is a thing for itself i.e. a subject of experience. But objective things in themselves is nonsense, and probably the ghost of his Christian upbringing.
Agree.
The yearning and pining for the thing-in-itself is a more a primal drive inherent in all humans where some are able to modulate and manage this drive for their well-being.
Belinda
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Belinda »

Veritas Aequitas wrote:
The yearning and pining for the thing-in-itself is a more a primal drive inherent in all humans where some are able to modulate and manage this drive for their well-being.
It can't be a primal drive, because Indian religion, which affects millions of people,is all about how there is no duality between absolute mind and any individual mind.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:25 am Veritas Aequitas wrote:
The yearning and pining for the thing-in-itself is a more a primal drive inherent in all humans where some are able to modulate and manage this drive for their well-being.
It can't be a primal drive, because Indian religion, which affects millions of people, is all about how there is no duality between absolute mind and any individual mind.
Not sure which perspective you are looking at?

What I meant by 'primal drive' re yeaning for the thing-in-itself is like those primal drives of hunger, sex, fears, and the good ones like philosophy-proper, morality, etc.
Belinda
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Belinda »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:08 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:25 am Veritas Aequitas wrote:
The yearning and pining for the thing-in-itself is a more a primal drive inherent in all humans where some are able to modulate and manage this drive for their well-being.
It can't be a primal drive, because Indian religion, which affects millions of people, is all about how there is no duality between absolute mind and any individual mind.
Not sure which perspective you are looking at?

What I meant by 'primal drive' re yeaning for the thing-in-itself is like those primal drives of hunger, sex, fears, and the good ones like philosophy-proper, morality, etc.
Yes, I understood that's what you meant by primal drive, and I understand why you would think that.There are millions of people who don't yearn for the thing in itself, for the reason that they regard the thing in itself and each self to be one. Atman is Brahman.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:32 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:08 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:25 am Veritas Aequitas wrote:


It can't be a primal drive, because Indian religion, which affects millions of people, is all about how there is no duality between absolute mind and any individual mind.
Not sure which perspective you are looking at?

What I meant by 'primal drive' re yeaning for the thing-in-itself is like those primal drives of hunger, sex, fears, and the good ones like philosophy-proper, morality, etc.
Yes, I understood that's what you meant by primal drive, and I understand why you would think that. There are millions of people who don't yearn for the thing in itself, for the reason that they regard the thing in itself and each self to be one. Atman is Brahman.
Brahman is a thing-in-itself i.e. independent of all human things.
As such, those who are inclined to Brahman [consciously or subconsciously] have a active subliminal primal drive for the thing-in-itself.

On the other hand, Buddhism's nothingness is the attempt not to be a slave [subliminally] to this primal drive for the thing-in-itself.

Realists with their Realism [philosophical] by definition are also driven by the primal drive to veer toward the thing-in-itself, albeit many are not conscious of it.
Belinda
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Belinda »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:20 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:32 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:08 am
Not sure which perspective you are looking at?

What I meant by 'primal drive' re yeaning for the thing-in-itself is like those primal drives of hunger, sex, fears, and the good ones like philosophy-proper, morality, etc.
Yes, I understood that's what you meant by primal drive, and I understand why you would think that. There are millions of people who don't yearn for the thing in itself, for the reason that they regard the thing in itself and each self to be one. Atman is Brahman.
Brahman is a thing-in-itself i.e. independent of all human things.
As such, those who are inclined to Brahman [consciously or subconsciously] have a active subliminal primal drive for the thing-in-itself.

On the other hand, Buddhism's nothingness is the attempt not to be a slave [subliminally] to this primal drive for the thing-in-itself.

Realists with their Realism [philosophical] by definition are also driven by the primal drive to veer toward the thing-in-itself, albeit many are not conscious of it.
But is it useful to call it a "primal drive" when it is actually a cultural drive?
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Belinda wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:50 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:20 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:32 am
Yes, I understood that's what you meant by primal drive, and I understand why you would think that. There are millions of people who don't yearn for the thing in itself, for the reason that they regard the thing in itself and each self to be one. Atman is Brahman.
Brahman is a thing-in-itself i.e. independent of all human things.
As such, those who are inclined to Brahman [consciously or subconsciously] have a active subliminal primal drive for the thing-in-itself.

On the other hand, Buddhism's nothingness is the attempt not to be a slave [subliminally] to this primal drive for the thing-in-itself.

Realists with their Realism [philosophical] by definition are also driven by the primal drive to veer toward the thing-in-itself, albeit many are not conscious of it.
But is it useful to call it a "primal drive" when it is actually a cultural drive?
Actually it is not a cultural drive but on the surface, atman & Brahman are spiritual, religious or theological drives.

However to maximize utility or resolve problems associated with the above, it is most effective to dig into the root [proximate, ultimate] causes. To do so, we must trace the thing-in-itself to its proximate root, i.e. the primal drive.

We must, at present, at least understand the mechanics of the inherent root causes that drive all humans to seek the thing-in-itself whilst some are able to modulate this inherent drive.
However, the effective solutions expected from the understanding will likely to be possible in the future, probable, next two to three generations.

If we merely focus on the cultural aspects of it, we will forever will be fire-fighting whatever problems that arise from it, as the majority are doing at present.
Belinda
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Belinda »

Religious motives are included as cultural motives. Not all cultural motives are not religious. Some cultural motives are religious.

'Things in themselves' is a notion that pertains to maya i.e. illusion. Things in themselves has nothing whatsoever to do with Brahman.
The Hindu concept of maya means 'illusion' and refers to the ways in which a person's existence and self-centredness stop them from seeing the truth. Hindus believe that maya can exert a powerful influence on people. Humans often feel that the most important things in life are relationships, family and what they own.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Belinda wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:04 am Religious motives are included as cultural motives. Not all cultural motives are not religious. Some cultural motives are religious.

'Things in themselves' is a notion that pertains to maya i.e. illusion. Things in themselves has nothing whatsoever to do with Brahman.
The Hindu concept of maya means 'illusion' and refers to the ways in which a person's existence and self-centredness stop them from seeing the truth. Hindus believe that maya can exert a powerful influence on people. Humans often feel that the most important things in life are relationships, family and what they own.
Brahman is aligned with the thing-in-itself not things-in-themselves.

Typically, Hindus would not identify Brahman and atman with the thing-in-itself.
But philosophically [Kantian] both are reducible to the thing-in-itself.

Here is a googled quickie,
Dauer explains that Schopenhauer himself equated the ‘will’ with the Vedic concept of Brahman (13). In Vedic literature, Brahman is an unchanging essence or soul,
from which all individual souls (atman) originate. It is through his association of will with
Brahman that Schopenhauer says: "exemption from death [...] is due only in so far as
[we are] thing-in-itself” (World, 185).
In The World as Will and Idea, Schopenhauer follows this idea through by saying that the real nature of the world consists in Brahman (thing-in-itself) (83).
https://digitalshowcase.lynchburg.edu/c ... text=agora
From the Kantian perspective, Brahman is the ultimate thing-in-itself while the atman is the proximate thing-in-itself.

Schopenhauer interpretation of the thing-in-itself [as the most real] is different from Kant's [as illusion]. So for Kant, Brahman is an illusion like those Hindus who view it in terms of Neti-Neti.

Here's another quickie.
Belinda
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Re: Kant: Laws of Nature, We Ourselves Introduce

Post by Belinda »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:27 am
Belinda wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:04 am Religious motives are included as cultural motives. Not all cultural motives are not religious. Some cultural motives are religious.

'Things in themselves' is a notion that pertains to maya i.e. illusion. Things in themselves has nothing whatsoever to do with Brahman.
The Hindu concept of maya means 'illusion' and refers to the ways in which a person's existence and self-centredness stop them from seeing the truth. Hindus believe that maya can exert a powerful influence on people. Humans often feel that the most important things in life are relationships, family and what they own.
Brahman is aligned with the thing-in-itself not things-in-themselves.

Typically, Hindus would not identify Brahman and atman with the thing-in-itself.
But philosophically [Kantian] both are reducible to the thing-in-itself.

Here is a googled quickie,
Dauer explains that Schopenhauer himself equated the ‘will’ with the Vedic concept of Brahman (13). In Vedic literature, Brahman is an unchanging essence or soul,
from which all individual souls (atman) originate. It is through his association of will with
Brahman that Schopenhauer says: "exemption from death [...] is due only in so far as
[we are] thing-in-itself” (World, 185).
In The World as Will and Idea, Schopenhauer follows this idea through by saying that the real nature of the world consists in Brahman (thing-in-itself) (83).
https://digitalshowcase.lynchburg.edu/c ... text=agora
From the Kantian perspective, Brahman is the ultimate thing-in-itself while the atman is the proximate thing-in-itself.

Schopenhauer interpretation of the thing-in-itself [as the most real] is different from Kant's [as illusion]. So for Kant, Brahman is an illusion like those Hindus who view it in terms of Neti-Neti.

Here's another quickie.
Thank you. That is new to me and I need to think it over, if I can !
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